As rebuses go, this one felt awfully straightforward. Just three squares involved, and then a theme-revealer that (assuming you've cracked the rebus) is instantly gettable. That's what was weirdest about my solving experience — I sailed with relative ease through the north but was getting destroyed by the south when I realized, after much floundering, that I hadn't even bothered to look at that last theme answer (the revealer). THREE LITTLE PIGS went right in and then, magically, the south went down just as easily as the north had. Because there was some serious stuck time sandwiched in the middle of the easiness, and because rebuses generally take people longer than straight puzzles, I thought this merited at least a "Medium" difficulty rating.

UGSOME is not a word you really want in your puzzle (15A: Dreadful, old-style). Especially in the top-center. Too easy for critics to use it as a descriptor for the puzzle as a whole.

Theme answers:

17A: Person making firm decisions (Chairman of the [BOAR]d)

12D: Detroit venue for sporting evengts and concerts (Co [BOAR] ena) — this is where I first realized something was up, rebus-wise. "This should be COBO ... or JOE LOUIS ... why won't they fit?"

Again I had name problems today. Though the pirate was RENÉ (it was JEAN, 47A: Pirate Lafitte); don't know the Marilyn MONROE movie in question (67A: "Niagara" star, 1953); never heard of SARA Ramirez (38D: Tony-winning "Spamalot" actress Ramirez); never heard of this LEN person (44D: "Live Free or Die Hard" director Wiseman). Weirdly, I knew LON without knowing how/why (61D: Hoops coach Kruger), and I knew SASHA Vujacic despite his not being even among the top four names on the Lakers roster (29A: Vujacic of the Los Angeles Lakers, who's nicknamed "The Machine"). ASHTON was a gimme (51D: "Punk'd" host Kutcher). I learned his name via "That 70's Show." Now he's famous for being famous.

Bullets:

5A: Vice president after Breckinridge (Hamlin) — more name trouble. Couldn't remember good ol' Hannibal here. Meanwhile, "Breckinridge" makes the clues for the second day in a row.

54A: Parris Isl. outfit (USMC) — no idea what "Parris Isl." is. I assume it's an island. Like Paradise Island or Fantasy Island. Only with Marines.

70A: Pachacuti's people (Incans) — hmm, what's the difference between an INCAN and an INCA? Or INCANS and INCA, for that matter? Looking at prior clues, the answer appears to be "nothing."

4D: Green crops cultivated for fodder (soilage) — I thought this was SILAGE. Answers.com tells me that SILAGE means "Fodder prepared by storing and fermenting green forage plants in a silo." One letter off and both relate to "fodder?" Come on, farmers. I call "Unnecessary wordage" on you.

5D: Snorts of disdain (humphs) — often heard in response to things UGSOME.

26D: D.C. diamond squad (Nats) — this team is a boon to the world of crosswords, if not to the sport of baseball.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

William Van Alen (August 10, 1883 – May 24, 1954) was an American architect, best known as the architect in charge of designing New York City's Chrysler Building (1929-30). [...] Unfortunately, when commissioned to build the Chrysler Building, Van Alen failed to enter into a contract with Mr. Chrysler. After the building was completed, Van Alen requested payment of 6% of the building's ($14 million) budget - which was the standard fee of the time. After Chrysler refused payment, Van Alen sued him and won, eventually receiving the fee. However, the lawsuit significantly depreciated his reputation, as an employable architect. His career effectively ruined by the lawsuit, followed by the Great Depression, Van Alen focused his attention more on teaching sculpture. (wikipedia)

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Ah, jet lag.

Let's see if I can get this thing up by 9am EST. (1/2 hour from now)

First, could some enterprising constructor out there please contact United Airlines' "Hemispheres" magazine and offer to write their crossword for them, because whoever is doing it now suuuuuuuuuuuux. Huge 23x23 grid, but only a handful of *randomly placed* theme answers, and the theme was ... Japan. As in ... all theme answers were in some way related to Japan. Grid had some appalling number of black squares, including highly unnecessary cheater squares aplenty. Best FAIL moment: DEW sitting directly and squarely on top of ... BEDEW. Holy cow. Solving that puzzle was the second-most horrifying in-flight moment of my trip, right after Sky Mall's headline for G-Defy shoes: "Feel like your defying Gravity!"

This puzzle was OK, but I don't see any link among theme answers except that their ticker symbols have some cute symbolic relationship to the company they represent. What the hell is a GENENTECH? The other answers are exceedingly well known retailers, but GENENTECH sounds like the ominous corporation in a scifi thriller. Like PrimatechPaper or Massive Dynamic. Really odd to have one answer so much more obscure / different from the others. Also, three Woody Allen clues? I get it, you're a fan, but yeesh. All in the N / NW, so I thought that was the theme at first. Two partial names I didn't know — 57D: Explorer Cabeza de VACA and 65A: Art Deco architect William Van ALEN — and one partial name I did — 16A: SAXE-Coburg-Gotha (old British royal house). How many more fill-in-the-blank names can there be? Answer: four. Wallace SHAWN (18A: Wallace ___ of "Manhattan"), Rubina ALI (52A: Rubina ___ of "Slumdog Millionaire"), CHAKA Khan (29D: Grammy winner ___ Khan), and MYRA (36D: Vidal's "___ Breckinridge"). That's a lot.

Theme answers:

20A: Company with the stock ticker symbol BKS (Barnes & Noble)

25A: Company with the stock ticker symbol DNA (Genentech)

39A: Company with the stock ticker symbol ZZ (Sealy)

48A: Company with the stock ticker symbol PZZA (Papa John's)

53A: Company with the stock ticker symbol HOG (Harley Davidson)

Watched an episode of "Nova" last night about DNA research and evolution, and while no one mentioned GENENTECH, one segment did feature a series of cheek SWABs used to collect DNA from different people in the lab, so that answer was oddly timely for me (1D: DNA collector, perhaps). Also timely was MYRA Breckinridge, as it appears my (entire) family will be vacationing there (Breckinridge, CO) when next we vacation (summer?). What else ... oh, the long Downs are nice, esp. EFFRONTERY (3D: Chutzpah). I'm not sure I quite understand the clue on O'DAY (22D: Jazz singer who took her surname from pig Latin). She took her name from DOUGH? D'OH? DOUGH wasn't her real name, was it? According to wikipedia, it's from "dough," slang for money. Innnnteresting. Mom just got me a CD of hers and I like it a lot. She had serious drug problems but lived a long life and was still working when she died in 2006.

Monday, December 28, 2009

Theme: Hidden Birds — Theme answers have the names of types of birds hidden in them.

Theme answers:

16A: *Did a dog trick (ROLLED OVER)

22A: *One who's often doing favors (MISTER NICE GUY)

36A: *Affordable, as an apartment (LOW-RENT)

38A: *Tugboat rope (TOWLINE)

46A: *Aldous Huxley novel (BRAVE NEW WORLD)

57A: *Bar patron's request for a refill (ANOTHER ONE)

46D: Things hidden in the answers to this puzzle's six starred clues (BIRDS)

Word of the Day: IBOS (2D: Nigerian natives)

Igbo people, also referred to as the Ibo(e), Ebo(e), Eboans or Heebo are an ethnic group living chiefly in southeastern and south Nigeria. They speak Igbo, which includes various Igboid languages and dialects; today, a majority of them speak English alongside Igbo as a result of British colonialism. Igbo people are among the largest and most influential ethnic groups in Nigeria. Due to the effects of migration and the Atlantic slave trade, there are Igbo populations in countries such as Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea, as well as outside Africa. Their exact population outside Africa is unknown, but today many African Americans and Afro Caribbeans are of Igbo descent.

Hi there, everybody. PuzzleGirl here doing a very quick rundown of Tuesday's puzzle for you. Got a message from Rex earlier today asking if I could fill in for him because he's having too much fun with his family. Or something. I'm actually in Chicago right now for a wrestling tournament, which means I'm in for a long day and can't really spend a lot of time on this puzzle. I hope that doesn't hurt your feelings. I swear you all are very important to me, it's just that it's very cold here, and we're staying at a hotel that's kind of far away from the venue, and we're trying to do this trip on the cheap by taking public transportation, and my point is — I have enough problems tomorrow without also having to deal with lack of sleep (which tends to make me ... a little cranky). So. The puzzle.

I liked this puzzle quite a bit. It was a smooth solve for me, right around my average Tuesday time. I did end up with a mistake though. I threw ASU in where KSU belongs (Arizona State is Wildcats too, right? Crap. No, they're the Sun Devils. University of Arizona are Wildcats though. At least I got the right state. Although I guess it wasn't really the right state since it was the wrong answer). Anyway, I didn't check the cross to see that JERA didn't make any sense where JERK was supposed to be. Oh well. I probably won't lose any sleep over it. God, I hope I don't lose any sleep over it. I already explained the issue with the sleep, right?

Couple things:

10A: Yank's foe (REB). Entered MET at first which is really dumb because even though I don't know which teams are in the American League and which are in the National League I do know that the Yankees and the Mets are not in the same league.

15A: "A ___ bagatelle!" (MERE). Is this a thing? I'm guessing it's a popular culture reference that I missed. Let's see ... Nope. I'm totally wrong. And do you know why? Because I don't actually know the word bagatelle and I just assumed it meant baguette. Can you believe I admit this stuff publicly?

33A: Fancy dresser (FOP). Fop is a great word. PuzzleHusband is something of a fop. At least he thinks so.

51A: Hawkeye State native (IOWAN). Go, Hawks!

66A: School attended by 007 (ETON). Also attended by 46A's Aldous Huxley.

12D: ___ Wetsy (old doll) (BETSY). PuzzleDaughter has been talking about the "Baby Alive Whoopsie Doo Doll" recently. Can you guess what the "Whoopsie Doo" refers to? Let's just say it does more than wet. Ugh.

42D: Part of P.E.I.: Abbr. (EDW.). For all of us non-Canadians that's Prince EDWard Island. See also 59D: Neighbor of Que[bec] (ONT[ario]).

So that's about all I have time for. You guys go ahead and have at it in the comments. With any luck, Rex will be back tomorrow.

Would've been a pretty dull puzzle without a. the added precede/follow part of the theme answers, and b. some pretty decent fill in some of the longer answers. In the end, a decent effort. Three partials (IT A, ME I, A RAW) seems a tad too many for a non-demanding theme like this one. OON (48A: Suffix with pont-) is wicked bad, and there's perhaps a bit more crosswordese than you'd like, but DEAR SANTA is at least timelyish, and CD RACKS is cleverish, and DONKEY, SEAWORTHY, PEP TALK, DENZEL, and BANZAI (56A: Buckaroo ___ (movie character)) are all pretty good. Not much else to say here, so I'll cut it short.

Theme answers:

17A: One word that precedes "pit," one that follows it (cock and bull)

27A: One word that precedes "key," one that follows it (room and board)

45A: One word that precedes "play," one that follows it (down and dirty)

61A: One word that precedes "hard," one that follows it (rock and roll) — this one threw me the most (when I was done), since I assumed the phrase involved was HARD ROCK, and then couldn't figure out what ROLL HARD meant. . . but no: ROCK HARD and HARD ROLL.

Bullets:

4D: Ringo's drummer son (Zak) — high-end crosswordese. He's an accomplished drummer, but would never appear in a puzzle if his name was, say, BEN. For more high-end crosswordese, see also KARNAK (65A: Egyptian temple site).

58D: Actress Lupino and others (Idas) — so many IDAs... if you are going to go with a plural name, I really prefer that you give me two examples. "And others" seems a cop-out.

56D: Gravy vessel (boat) — like to think of this as part of a greater nautical sub-theme, with SEAWORTHY and DECK (32D: What a swabbie swabs).

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Constructor: Elizabeth C. Gorski

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Toasting the New Year" — all about CHAMPAGNE, the letters to which sit inside a glass (made out of black squares). The CHAMPAGNE gives off BUBBLES (letters in circled squares floating above the glass) — and then several long theme answers relate to CHAMPAGNE ...

Word of the Day: BAST (11D: Rope fiber) — bast (bast)

noun

1. Bot. any type of phloem2. fiber obtained from phloem, used in making ropes, mats, etc.

Etymology: ME < OE bæst, inner bark of trees; akin to Ger & ON bast [PHLOEM = In vascular plants, phloem is the living tissue that carries organic nutrients (known as photosynthate), particularly sucrose, a sugar, to all parts of the plant where needed. (wikipedia)]

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Whoa, it went from Christmas (Friday) to New Year's (today) pretty damned fast. Was not expecting a new holiday puzzle so soon, but it was a welcome surprise. I really like this puzzle — the only real downside (aside from some strained fill) is that it looks JUST like a puzzle Ms. Gorski did last year — the James Bond puzzle that featured a MARTINI glass in the center of the grid (that glass was filled, not surprisingly, with the word MARTINI). In that grid, the glass was delineated by circled squares you had to connect (in your mind or with pen). Today's makes a more bold, clear visual statement with the glass unmistakably in black. Circles are always a tricky proposition — I can love them or hate them, depending on how they're used. I LOVE today's circles, particularly the floating BUBBLES. The quotation in the puzzle is very cool, and the assorted theme-related answers lively and interesting. So I had to deal with the worst abbr. ever (AGN — 61A: Once more: Abbr.), and the crossing of IT with IT (OF IT w/w ACE IT), and three different partials with indefinite articles (A POET, A CRAB, LEAD A). These are acceptable prices to pay for an ambitious, imaginative puzzle like this.

39D: Cry before "Happy New Year!" ("It's twelve o'clock!") — I have never heard this cry. People count down from 10 to 1. But it's a plausible cry, if, say, party-goers somehow haven't been paying attention closely enough to do the countdown.

Good handful of stuff I've never seen before, including BAST and MERCE (70A: Late choreographer Cunningham). ILIA was also unknown (14D: 1998 Olympic figure skating gold medalist ___ Kulik), and between that and BAST, I had my first and only serious hang-up early on when the quotation read "I AM DRINKING -HEST-RS" — and I thought, "Is CHESTER'S a kind of champagne?" Only other answer I can never remember seeing before is IMARI (115A: Japanese porcelain). Thankfully, the crosses were kind. I was able to pull ANSA (54D: Looped handle, in archaeology) and RACEME from my crossword bag o' tricks (words I know Only from xwords). I've never heard of / don't quite believe in "HULK OUT" (116A: Become enraged, as a comic book figure), but it's really hard for me not to like something that embraces comicbookitude so much.

Bullets:

29A: Vietnamese leader ___ Dinh Diem (Ngo) — another day, another Vietnamese leader. I got this w/o ever seeing the clue. Figured it would be short for Non-Governmental Organization. But no.

62A: Follows the path of 19th-century pioneers (goes west) — love most of the longish non-theme answers in this (remarkably wide open) grid. See also GUNNED FOR, TOOK A CAB, and HORSELIKE.

68A: Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Eagles (aerie) — well ... that makes sense.

114A: Genetic material with no known function (Junk DNA) — Nice. You don't know what something does, so you label it "JUNK." Science!

40D: Discovery of the explorer Louis Juliet (Lake Erie) — lived near ERIE for years. Did not know this.

Friday, December 25, 2009

Constructor: Kevin G. Der

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none

Word of the Day: THERIAC (42D: Onetime snake venom antidote) — Theriac or theriaca was a medical concoction originally formulated by the Greeks in the first century AD and became popular throughout the ancient world as far away as China and India via the trading links of the Silk Route. It was an alexipharmic, or antidote, considered a universal panacea, for which it could serve as a synonym: Adam Lonicer wrote that garlic was the rustics' Theriac or Heal-All. (wikipedia)

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My write-ups for the next four to five days are likely to be slightly abbreviated, as I am a. on vacation, b. in a different time zone, and thus c. writing this at night so as not have to get up at a Ridiculously early hour. Today's puzzle was weird for me — good, but weird. I usually block the constructor's name when I'm solving, and today I could tell pretty quickly that the constructor was going to end up being one of the younger constructors I like a lot. But usually I tear these very contemporary, somewhat pop culture-heavy puzzles up. Today, not really. A slightly slower than normal Saturday time. Even with gimmes like ABE and MONA, TONY DOW, RON Weasley, etc. I still couldn't get good traction in many parts of the grid. Clues were pretty wicked in places, and some answers were just mysteries. So I got a fresh, modern puzzle *and* a better-than-avg. workout. All in all, a good Saturday.

TASTE (34D: Old cigarette ad buzzword) — ??? don't all cigarette ads talk about "TASTE." I was looking for ... Q ZONE or some other made-up medical term.

I got into the NE pretty easily, but I had issues in most other places, esp. the NW, where I couldn't get the front end of any of those Acrosses, and knew too much so-called Valspeak to be able to make a solid guess at 2D: Start of many a comment in Valspeak ("I'M LIKE") — I had "HE'S ALL" and "HE GOES" at some point. Main other hang-up was in the SW, where I had ARNE for IVES (40A: "Universe Symphony" composer), and wouldn't accept LET ON because I thought it meant the opposite of the clue, 35A: Pretend. That is, I thought it meant "reveal" rather than "pretend." Bah. One I figured out the trickery of 36D: Saint in "Exodus" (Eva Marie), the corner opened up, with a nice double-Z revelation at the end of LIVE JAZZ (35D: Some lounge entertainment).

15A: Edward James Olmos's directorial debut, 1992 ("American Me") — happy with myself for (finally) remembering this. Couldn't get "Stand By Me" or "Stand and Deliver" out of my head.

30A: Cause of rage against the machine? ("Tilt") — a great "?" clue, as is 17A: Frames that take shape? (claymation)

8D: 1999 Oscar nominee for both direction and screenwriting (M. Night Shyamalan) — seen it, so it's not that exciting to me as 15s go. I'm not a fan, generally.

9D: Alternative to grunge (emo) — seems wrong. These genres are from two totally different eras. "EMO" is actually as old as grunge, but it had no currency in the general population until a good decade+ after grunge's heyday. Also, these genres are not unrelated.

24D: Schools where students wear white (dojos) — in retrospect, it should not have taken me as long to get this as it did.

26D: Letters after many animal names (EIEIO) — ditto.

60D: Gracklelike bird (ani) — I don't think I've seen the word "gracklelike" before. I like grackles because they are black but with this cool bluish tint.

P.S. In case you missed it yesterday, I constructed another puzzle for you all. It was inspired by a comment on this blog in which the commenter confessed to having initially misunderstood the theme of this past Sunday's puzzle, "Inside Dope." Thus, I offer you "Inside Dope, Part 2." Enjoy.

This puzzle was inspired by commenter "joeyshapiro," who, in commenting on last Sunday's puzzle "Inside Dope," wrote: "before starting the puzzle in earnest, was wondering if the theme answers would all have THC in them. Seemed a touch racey for NYT..." But not too racy for me. Most of the constructing time on this one was spent brain-storming theme answers. Considered trying for HEALTHCARE, since it's timely, but couldn't get symmetry to work, and ... frankly, I didn't want to think about the HEALTHCARE bill, for a host of reasons. So HEALTHCLASS, which is definitely a thing, but my least favorite of the theme answers (most favorite = DEPTHCHART, a never-been-used (that I know of) answer that has huge currency in the world of sports, football in particular). In addition to the theme, BOFF (as clued) and BIRTH CANAL are things you aren't likely to see in the NYT.

Two answers not in the cruciverb.com database: ED HELMS and CANDIED.

Crossing that I worried might get someone: BOTS x/w ROTH. I assume that "O" was inferrable. RUTH is the only other plausible name that might go there, and BUTS ... just isn't a likely answer for 46A.

Had PEÑA near the center at one point (where PONE is now), but decided I'd avoid the "Ñ" / "N" crossing — ditched it and ended up with better fill around. SNOOD instead of SNEAD, FORTE instead of SORTA, and thus FLASHER instead of SLASHER.

Happy to give MR. T as contemporary a clue as possible. Also liked the clue on JOHNS (thanks to Crossword Fiend for suggesting Haggard — original JOHNS were Spitzer, *Springer* and Swaggart).

Don't love: SSRS, SACS, ONEA, LOI, ARPS ... not thrilled with A B OR C, but it made that whole section better, and it's valid, so whatever. Liked getting ELVES in there for Christmas.

Interesting puzzle, but what the hell is this grid supposed to depict? What shape is that? A ghost? The only ghost it resembles is one of the ghosts from Pac-Man (my sister's first response upon seeing the grid: "Space Invaders?"). A Christmas tree? That's one messed up, lopsided Christmas tree. Neither wife nor I can figure it out. Like the way the theme answers intersect here, but feel like the rest of the grid is engaging in some serious Christmas overkill. Sneaking TINY TIM in was nice (24A: With 35-Down, brother of Master Peter), but JINGLERS (32D: Sleigh bells and such)? And then giving a Christmas-related clue to every possible answer? Dial it back. In addition to not getting the grid shape, I don't really love SOCIAL CLIMBER (12A: A-list wannabe) — great as a phrase, but weird for a non-theme answer to be longer than 3 of the 4 theme Acrosses in the grid. Wouldn't be so noticeable if it were directly under BOB CRATCHIT. I enjoyed this puzzle for its originality, shape-wise, and for its ambition. It was rough for me, in patches, but overall, mostly enjoyable.

Theme answers:

9A: One who worked in a "dismal little cell" (Bob Cratchit) — spelled it CRATCHET, which created huge problems in the already difficulty NE. AHMET!?!? RIBCUT (8D: Club steak, e.g.)? ENYA as an "artist????" (16D: "And Winter Came ..." artist). What's the opposite of TERRIF (11D: "Super!")?

26A: With 32-Across, one subjected to "incessant torture of remorse" (Ghost of / Jacob Marley)

53A: One who saw his name upon the stone of a neglected grave (Ebenezer Scrooge)

Besides the NE, my other trouble spot was in and around SOIL (51A: Agrarian concern). Couldn't do anything with it. Couldn't get ENGEL (60A: Tannenbaum topper). Took a while to see IONS (52D: Na+ and Cl-). Made a good guess at SSTS, which helped (63A: Tupolev Tu-144s, e.g.). Also, perhaps because the very phrase YULE LOG sounds repulsive to me, I completely suppressed it and had ... YULE POTS. Needless to say, I did not approve that answer. Sadly, real answer (totally valid) didn't make me any happier (34D: Iconic flamers).

Bullets:

25A: Stocking stuffer (toy) — best wrong answer of the day: TOE.

44A: Noted Bauhaus teacher (Klee) — had no idea he had anything to do with Bauhaus or was ever a "teacher" of note. Live and learn. And then forget, mostly, if history is any indication.

58A: Michael who wrote "Charmed Lives" (Korda) — I know him from a book about bestsellers called "Making the List." There was once a tennis player named Petr KORDA. Coincidentally, my sister and her husband are playing tennis on the Wii Fit (Christmas gift for their boys) as we speak.

40D: Hutch's head, briefly (Hef) — What the ???? I have never heard the term "Hutch" for (I'm assuming) the Playboy Mansion. This must have been common parlance in some misty era before I was born, or before I became an adult. The only "Hutch" I know partnered with Starsky.

P.S. Here's your Christmas present — another puzzle to amuse you this holiday weekend. It gets a little ... blue in places, but I assume you all can handle it. The puzzle was inspired by a comment on this blog in which the commenter confessed to having initially misunderstood the theme of this past Sunday's puzzle, "Inside Dope." Thus, I offer you "Inside Dope, Part 2." Enjoy.

[as always, click on "Print" below, or go here (to the forum at crosswordfiend.com) to get a .puz / AcrossLite version of the puzzle]

Kosher foods are divided into three categories: meat, dairy and pareve. One of the basic principles of kashrut is the total separation of meat and dairy products. Meat and dairy may not be cooked or eaten together. To ensure this, the kosher kitchen contains separate sets of dishes, utensils, cookware, and separate preparation areas for meat and dairy. A third category, pareve, is comprised of foods which are neither meat nor dairy and may therefore be eaten with either. ...

Pareve food can generally be served with either meat or dairy meals. Some kitchens have serving and mixing bowls, pots, and knives used exclusively for pareve food. If a pareve food ... is cooked or mixed together with any meat or dairy products it becomes respectively either meat or dairy and all laws pertaining to meat and dairy apply, including the required waiting times.

Hi, everybody. It's PuzzleGirl! I'm so happy to be spending part of the holidays here with you all. Did you have a nice Festivus? Air any interesting grievances? Observe any feats of strength worth mentioning? I'm not going to take up a lot of your time today because you probably have plans for the rest of the day that don't allow you to sit in front of your computer for hours on end. Here at the PuzzleHouse we will probably be baking a lot of cookies. I will also need to make at least one trip to the grocery store, which I'm sure is going to be calm and relaxing. Then after dinner we'll open some presents and by tomorrow we'll be bored. Of course I'm kidding. The PuzzleParents will actually be joining us Friday night for the rest of the week and PuzzleHusband and I will be traveling to Chicago for a few days. Yes, I know traveling to Chicago in December isn't a great idea. What can I say? We're not very smart.

What? There's a puzzle? Okay, let's talk about the puzzle. I love a rebus! I really do! Thursdays are pretty much the only day we see them and every Thursday that we don't get one, I have to admit I'm a little disappointed. But not today. The reason I rated this puzzle Easy-Medium is that I solved it quite a bit quicker than my typical Thursday time. But I also wanted to account for the fact that the rebus might have slowed people down. It usually slows me down, but for some reason I caught onto this one right away. I'm all "Cavaliers? Well, they're in Cleveland. Oh it must be some college Cavaliers...." But then when I had a few of the crosses in place, and thought about what day it is, the rebus became obvious. Like I said, totally atypical for me to grok a rebus that quickly, so that's why I added the "medium."

There was also quite a bit of what I think of as Bob Klahn cluing. That is, a clue showing up in more than one place or a couple of clues that are similar. For example:

25A: Monopoly token (HAT).

54A: Monopoly token (SHOE)

2D: Plains Indian (OTOE)

36A: Dakota Indian (REE)

49A: Ho-hum (BLASÉ)

49D: Feeling ho-hum (BORED)

I didn't like the monopoly token clues because, even though I grant that it's perfectly legit, I've never called the "hat" anything but the TOPHAT. And I didn't like the Dakota Indian clue because I grew up in North Dakota and I didn't know the answer and that's just embarrassing.

Theme answers:

17A: In perpetuity (FOREVER AND EVER).

29A: Fight night highlight (MAIN EVENT).

38A: Fate-tempting motorcyclist (EVEL KNIEVEL).

41A: One in the charge of un instituteur (ÉLÈVE). French!

59A: Pan's place (NEVER NEVER LAND).

61A: Has a blast (REVELS).

4D: Cavaliers' home (CLEVELAND).

8D: Sharp (CLEVER).

11D: It was conquered in 1953 (MOUNT EVEREST). I wanted to include a "Sports Night" clip here, but it's not embeddable, plus I really only wanted the first minute and a half, so if you're interested you can go watch over on YouTube. It's pretty funny.

24D: Like tank tops (SLEEVELESS).

28D: Impossible to change (IRREVERSIBLE).

30D: Tylenol competitor (ALEVE). I think of Tylenol and Aleve as two completely different products, but that might just be because I know way more about pain relievers than a normal person should.

47D: Made without milk or meat (PAREVE).

53D: Midnight alarm giver (REVERE).

52D: Put out (PEEVED). I was thinking of a totally different meaning of "put out."

What else?

6A: Emmy-winning character actor James (COCO). I couldn't picture him in my mind and when I Googled I realized he's super familiar but I would have bet a lot of money he was someone else.

22A: Edible tubes (PENNE). I misread this "edible tubers." (Are there other kinds of tubers?)

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Constructor: Jonathan Porat

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: What's BLACK, WHITE, and RE(a)D ALL OVER? — theme answers begin with BLACK, WHITE, RED, and ALL OVER, respectively, and all of them tie into NEWSPAPER (72A: Answer to an old riddle alluded to by the starts of 17-, 32-, 42- and 64-Across)

Word of the Day: USLTA (2D: Org. that used to bring people to court?) — United States Lawn Tennis Association — since 1975, just "USTA"

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This puzzle is noteworthy for a couple things. First tons of theme squares. Very high theme density. This makes the other noteworthy feature even more surprising — those corners in the NW and SE. Stacked 9s over (and under) a 15?! So weird to see that kind of white space in a Wednesday puzzle. Toughish to construct, though I'm guessing the constructor got a nice assist from the cruciverb database (via constructing software) — JUST TRY ME (1A: "I dare you"), AS WE SPEAK (15A: This very moment), and ANAHEIM, CA (70A: Part of a postal address for Disneyland) (!?) are all in the database, and were (I'm guessing) suggested by constructing software (which is usually fueled by an imported word list, such as those available at cruciverb). Nothing wrong with that — everybody uses software. It's just that this puzzle screamed it with the fill in those open corners. ANAHEIM, CA is a sorry enough answer that it made me go check the database (which I normally don't do). But here the non-theme fill clearly doesn't matter. This puzzle's all about the theme, which is cute. Problem with the grid is that you pay for the theme density and huge NW/SE corners with a tidal wave of 3-letter answers (never a good thing — you end up with stuff like ABT next to SAE next to HRH, for example). Overall: B for concept, C for execution.

Theme answers:

17A: 1970 Santana hit ("BLACK Magic Woman")

32A: Evidence in the Watergate scandal (WHITE House tapes)

42A: Macho types (RED-blooded males) — now that's original (theme answers usu. are the most original things in the grid)

64A: Varying wildly (ALL OVER the place)

I've got holiday preparations to get to, so I'm going to make this quick.

10A: The Hawks of the Atlantic 10 conference, informally (St. Joe) — Hmmm. Only ever heard ST JOE'S, since the school is St. Joseph's. In college basketball commentary, it's ST. JOE'S.

28A: Kind of pit, briefly (Bar-B-Q) — not sure why I have trouble accepting this spelling. I just do.

58A: Extinct cousin of the kiwi (moa) — I heartily approve MOA. Still fighting for more exposure for KEA (the parrot, not the volcano name part).

3D: Stretch of grass (sward) — well, that's an ugly word. Unusual too. ULSTA/SWARD is what happens (sometimes) when you stack long answers.

13D: Animal with striped legs (okapi) — more odd fauna. Hard not to like OKAPI.

51D: 1935 Triple Crown horse (Omaha) — I'm kind of partial to the name of the owner/breeder, BEL AIR STUD.

53D: Finnish architect Alvar ___ (Aalto) — his name always feels like a Hail Mary pass to me. When you absolutely, positively need to cram a lot of common letters in weird order into the puzzle, he's your man.

(Music, other) Music a sign at the beginning or end of a section directed to be repeated. , :S:

[Italian: a sign, from Latin signum]

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This one took longer than usual, both because this type of theme generally requires you to work a lot of crosses before you can see the theme answers clearly (a base answer that's not clued, a wackily clued answer that isn't a real phrase in the English language), and because of a couple of missteps and mystery words. I've seen NINON before (67A: Curtain fabric), but needed every cross to finish it off (sounds like a mash-up of Every Other Fabric I've Ever Heard Of). SEGNO was a total mystery, though (as w/ many total mysteries) I have an eerie feeling it's been in my puzzle before. I wrote SLIPS UP for SLIP-UPS (33A: Goofs) ("Apt!"), and I totally and completely botched the NW initially and didn't even notice 'til I was "done": had DAT for DAH (1D: Morse T) and OLE for OLD (9D: Jolly ___ Saint Nick), and so had TOP STEWARE at 17A. "Stop Seware? Who's Seware?" Lastly, wrote in "IT IS I" instead of the correct (if incorrect) "IT'S ME!" at 4D: Response to "Who's there?" I still got in in the mid-4s somewhere, but that's something like 30 seconds slower than usual. Your mileage may vary.

The grid shape is really interesting to me. Shortish theme answers allow for the close placement of two Acrosses in the NW and SE corners, respectively, which then opens up room in the NE and SW for two Downs. Creates a thematically dense and yet playful (and reasonably open) grid. 40 black squares help give answers room to breathe and keep the fill from becoming terrible. SEGNO is the only thing that feels un-Tuesday. ANENT is ugly, but it's a real word, and the rest of the fill is at worst tolerable, occasionally lovely. Have to say that the SW is especially nice, if likely unremarkable to most. Any time you can get a section with all short answers to come out with a. all real words, and b. no tiresome words, you're doing your job.

54A: Pakistan's chief river (Indus) — haven't thought about this river since my 7th grade geography test, but there it was, waiting for me, in my mind. Thanks, Mrs. Stevens!

8D: Needle-nosed fish (gar) — he's been on holiday, I think, because he used to swim all over the grid in times of yore.

12D: Athenian lawgiver (Solon) — the very word "lawgiver" screams SOLON to me, but only because I had a course called "Athenian Democracy" in college.

25D: Pinochle lay-down (meld) — clue sounds dirty. Possibly ORAL.

37D: Gridder Roethlisberger (Ben) — "Gridder" makes me laugh. BEN is one of the three or four most highly regarded quarterbacks in the NFL right now. He's won two Super Bowls and just this past weekend kept his team in the playoff hunt with a ridiculous last-second win over the Packers.